Best way to set up 2 HDs and a CD-ROM for best performance?

[JackBurton]

What is the best way to set up 2 HDs and a CD-RW? I usually set it up with the optical drives on secondary and the hds on primary.

 

[powerMarkymark]

That would be your best option...........IMHO.

 

[FearOrLove]

Placing each HD on a seperate channel will allow better performance. Slave the CDRW to your least frequently used HD. Also place the swapfile on the least frequently accessed HD for best performance... unless that drive is alot slower than the other.

 

[Boonesmi]

i would probably do the same as FearOrLove said

my main harddrive as master on primary
then my backup harddrive master on secondary with the cdrom as its slave

 

[AnAndAustin]

FearOrLove gives excellent advice. It does depend a little on the specifics and how and when you use the IDE drives. HDs like to be master, and setting one to slave can limit its throughput to the master device. However, most CDRW like to be master, modern CDRW with burn-proof technology shouldn't mind too much though. You certainly want your main boot HD as the Primary Master, your 2nd HD is unlikely to enjoy being a slave to your CDRW so that means either put the 2nd HD as Sec Master and then use your CDRW as slave (to the HD least likely to be used in conjunction with the CDRW) or put your CDRW as the Sec Master and your 2ns HD then really has to be slave to your 1st HD (not good if you are likely to use both HDs simultaneously). You have to make some compromises however you set them up, about time the IDE interface was revised, 4 channels was fine back in the days of 1x200MB HD (and you had 1x3.5" floppy and 1x5.25" floppy) but in these days of 2xHDs, 1xCDRW and 1xDVD it is about time more channels were made standard.

 

[BFG10K]

I usually set it up with the optical drives on secondary and the hds on primary.

That's how I do it and I never have any problems. If you start sharing ATA-33 devices with faster devices then it's very likely that the faster device will be forced to throttle back.

 

[JackBurton]

Alright guys, THANKS A LOT! I really appreciate all your input.

 

[Whitecloak]

my config...

primary master - boot HD
secondary master - HD
secondary slave - CDRW

 

[AlucardBelmont]

I have 1 dvdRom, 1 cdrw, and a hdd..
my current placement is
hdd = primary master
dvd = secondary master
cdrw = secondary slave.
is this good? or is there a better way to set it up?

 

[AnAndAustin]

Should be fine, but I would prefer HD Pri Master, DVD Pri Slave and CDRW Sec Master. This allows the CDRW-to-DVD on the fly copying and will only not be optimal when you use HD and DVD simultaneously, since most people use CDRW & HD simultaneously having these on seperate channels is much wiser than DVD. Plus CDRW much prefer to be Master devices while DVD, like CDROM, are very happy as Slave devices. With many people using 2xHD, CDRW and DVD it would really make sense to make more than 2 channels the standard.

 

[Mday]

i would recommend getting a pci ata controller, and place each of them in their own channel.

but as it is, the HDDs in their own channel, and the CDRW in it's own channel.

if you add another optical drive, CD-ROM for example, then place a HDD and optical drive in each channel.

 

[AnAndAustin]

You can get more channels by using a PCI RAID solution (or onboard mobo RAID). This should give you 4 channels (supports 4 Masters and 4 Slaves), of course there is no need to use RAID features, just use the extra channels so everything has it's own seperate channel. Not sure whether you should still put the boot HD on the standard IDE channel or not, I shouldn't think you'd need to. I have never done this myself, but a few people have said it works great. Anybody have personal experience with RAID?